The present invention relates to a heating or air conditioning control device for a motor vehicle. The control device utilizes a flexible steel shaft for transferring the rotational motion of a control knob into a setting motion at an air vent.
The translation of the rotary motion of a control knob into a setting motion at the air vents of an automobile has been accomplished in several ways in the prior art. Electro-mechanical means have been used to achieve such motion, but this requires the use of control circuitry, wires, motors, and a power supply. Alternatively, purely mechanical coupling has been used by means of Bowden cables, but this requires structurally complex and space-occupying crank or toothed wheel gears on the control knob near a control device. Such structures have been used to translate the rotary setting movement of the control knob into a setting movement at the air vents.
There remains a need for a device that uses few parts and is inexpensive to construct that couples the rotary setting movement of a control knob to a setting motion at the air vents of an automobile.